


your dreams are so quiet (don't you need them anymore)

by simply_kelp



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Loss of Faith, Post-Last Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5725906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simply_kelp/pseuds/simply_kelp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is an uncharacteristically sunny Sunday afternoon in Finchley. Susan stands alone on the well-manicured lawn of the cemetery watching as five pine boxes are loaded in five rectangular holes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your dreams are so quiet (don't you need them anymore)

It is an uncharacteristically sunny Sunday afternoon in Finchley. Susan stands alone on the well-manicured lawn of the cemetery watching as five pine boxes are loaded in five rectangular holes. There were people at the ceremony—a joint affair; she could not ask for them to attend five separate funerals, nor could she afford them—but they left hours ago. There is a run in her stocking and the heels of her shoes poke into the earth beneath her as if they are trying to reunite her with those pine boxes and...

She cried when she saw them—bloodied and beaten almost beyond recognition. Lucy’s golden hair, the scar on Edmund’s knee, Peter’s name scrawled in the book in his jacket pocket. She couldn’t recognize their faces. She still sees them in her dreams. Warm tears sliding down her face, her chest, her hands. She does not cry today. Tears are a luxury she can no longer afford. There is not much she can afford anymore. She had to sell the house and much of the furniture, books and antiques to square away her parents’ debt and make arrangements for the funeral.

She remembers the child’s game they used to play. With talking animals and ice castles and a lion who was warm and soft but also wild. His voice—or at least how she imagined it would sound—insinuates itself in her ear. She remembers him dying, the loose tufts of his fur clinging to her tear-soaked fingers. She remembers his resurrection like the vibrancy of spring and the way her heart felt like it could fly as she and Lucy danced with him.

She remembers Lucy’s voice in her ear and the hollow echo of her response: _When will you learn to grow up?_ Her memories of Narnia are muddled and half-dreamed, a part of her wonders whether they were real. She discards this notion quickly. Aslan—the Aslan who sacrificed himself for Edmund when he was still quite nasty—would never take her family from her.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Once more for the dollhouse" by Basia Bulat


End file.
